Page 31 - Australian Defence Mag Jul-Aug 2020

JULY/AUGUST 2020 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
SURVEILLANCE IN LAND DOMAIN PASSIVE RADAR 31
SILENTIUM DEFENCE
DARONMONT TECHNOLOGIES
“Daronmont has been involved in passive technologies for over 20 years,” Lee Stanley, Business Development Man- ager, Daronmont Technologies said to ADM. “Our SECAR lineage stretches from HF radar in the late 90s through Comms ESM to Passive Radar today. Having established a strong track record of commercialising DST Group radar technology via the SECAR product line we were a natural fit to work them as they experimented and trialled passive technology with the goal of collaborating to commercialise passives radars for the ADF.”
Whilst DST matured the science and demonstrated the op- erational benefits of the radar to the ADF Daronmont adapt- ed its product engineering and signal processing strengths to this opportunity. Commercialisation and Collaboration
MAIN: A wide-shot gives a sense of the scale of the Silentium Defence MAVERICK S-series system in operation. A modular design, each increase in scale of the system increases the range for observation, in this case for objects in Low-Earth-Orbit in space.
INSET: Part of the Maverick S-series passive radar antenna array.
agreements with DST Group coincided perfectly with the newly launched Defence Innovation Hub (DIH) in 2016.
“We saw the opportunity to commercialise the technology for the ADF, which DST was very keen to support, and we were able to present a compelling DIH proposal with the sup- port of DST Group and sponsorship by Army headquarters.
“Our focus, via the DIH, is to manufacture operational ra- dars for a multitude of ADF applications. The technology is so versatile and easily adapted to land, air and maritime uses. We’ve been on this innovation journey with DST Group and the ADF for three years now, we’ve made real improvements in the radar’s performance which we feed back to DST Group and we are also demonstrating how this passive sensor can be effectively integrated into the broader battlespace picture. We’re at the point where our system, SECAR-P, is working as designed, is ready to be fielded within the ADF and is also attracting export interest,” Stanley said.
In 2016, the company signed what remains the largest single contract that’s been awarded by the DIH – a three year Phase 3/4 $7.9 million contract which is due to come to an end later this year. The company at this point is un- certain about the future of the program despite end-user support and recognition of the utility of the radar they have manufactured.
“This continues to be one of the challenges of the innova- tion process,” Stanley said. “The innovation to acquisition process drives the expectation that successful DIH delivery might dovetail with Defence procurement to get technol- ogy into the field. But for a variety of reasons that transi- tion activity hasn’t yet occurred. So at the moment the DIH project will end and not roll into a formal acquisition.
“Having said that though, Defence is very conscious of this and is taking steps now to identify avenues to either continue the development process or find an acquisition path for the technology to enter service. Therefore, with Defence’s blessing we’re pursuing export opportunities that will further develop and sustain SECAR-P so that it’s ready when the ADF is.”
SILENTIUM DEFENCE
Another specialist in this area is Silentium Defence. Spun out of DST Group, the now not so new start-up has won two Defence contracts to the value of $3.6 million including a contract from the DIH to support Space Situational Aware- ness development and Phase 2 and 3 DIH contracts that eventuated from the 2017 Army Innovation Day for their work on the Maverick family of passive radars.
The Maverick family of passive radars are targeting differ- ent customers and applications. The M-series is focused on the military application, the C-series for civilian customers, and